COLLEGE STATION (WBAP/KLIF News) – Hundreds of Texas A&M students will hold a silent protest this afternoon in response to an on-campus speech being given tonight by Richard Spencer, a white supremacist from Dallas.
Spencer gained national attention when a video surfaced of him shouting “Hail Trump, Hail Our People” to an audience giving a Nazi salute in Washington D.C last month.
Graduate student Nicholas Miendel organized the protest and said he knew tensions would be high. So, he wanted to set the narrative and not play into Spencer’s hands.
“By being silent, by being peaceful, by not engaging anyone for any reason; we are denying Mr. Spencer’s supporters and people like him the ammunition that they are specifically looking for to further polarize this issue more than it already is,” he said.
He said a lot of students were outraged when Spencer’s speech was advertised as entertainment. “I was disgusted that this person would try to find an audience here at university that prides itself by being diverse and having a particular set of values,” said Miendel.
There has been a lot of attention on the school since word of Spencer’s speech got out and Miendel said the mood on campus has been tense.
He said University President Michael Young’s planned “Aggies United” event, which is being held at the same time as Spencer’s speech, is too little too late.
“Especially, given over the past few months, incidents that have happened at Texas A&M that display that the climate on campus is not acceptable for a lot of people. People are concerned about their well being and whether or not they’re accepted on campus. His response to that was a set of emails and we didn’t see anything change,” said Miendel.
He said if the “Aggies United” event had happened earlier, it may have been perceived as more of a genuine effort.
“As a gesture to show this unity, but that it came so late and after all these protest were being set up its hard to take the narrative of this being against or countering Mr. Spencer’s message seriously,” said Miendel.
About 300 people are expected to attend the silent protest but Miendel said he hopes to break 1,000. The university said it would have enhanced security on campus today.
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